Some summer rituals are universal: picnics and red, ripe watermelon; afternoons in the water to beat the heat; and chasing fireflies across the lawn as they light up the night. Yet one of those rituals is in danger of vanishing. Over the past decade, and probably much longer, fireflies have been blinking out of existence….

As we celebrate Father’s Day this weekend, we thought it a fitting time to celebrate a 13th-century inventor who’s been called the “father of modern day engineering”: Ismail al-Jazari. Al-Jazari, born in 1136, was the chief engineer at Turkey’s Artuklu Palace. Some of his greatest contributions to history revolved — literally — around water: He…